Immersion and gaming

[Battlefront.com]

JosonC,

CMx1 had tons of design for effect and wouldn't have worked at all without it.

Right, but we didn't design for effect Those things you pointed out were compromises that we had to implement for one reason or another, primarily due to extremely limited computing resources. If we had today's computing power in 1997 then CMBO would probably have looked a lot like CM:SF in terms of the underlying game engine. The results of the two games may look quite different to you, but the design philosophy behind each was exactly the same.

On detecting significant crestlines, it would be too expensive to do dynamically and too much to do it for every insignificant terrain wrinkle, but it is still possible to detect the likely important ones at scenario start. Which would be useful for strategic AI stuff if that goes beyond scripting, incidentally. The formal method is called distance fields. Distance fields can be precalculated for movement and for visibility, here it is the latter that is relevant.

To some degree, and I honestly don't know what degree that is, this does happen. CM scans the map and flags different portions of it in ways that will be helpful to the TacAI and OpAI (the operational bit). The strategic stuff is left up to the scenario designer.

On grogs, Napoleon used the term as one of affection, and knew better than to try to stop all grumbling or to take a cessation of grumbling as a good sign. On the contrary, the value of his grumbling veteran NCOs was that they weren't panglosses, unlike the officers who would sugar coat everything, and weren't too intimidated to speak up, unlike the rankers and newcomers. The only way to find out what was actually wrong was the listen to the sergeants bitching and moaning.

True, and we use the same logic here too. But I don't think Napoleon felt that the gripings and bitchings of his NCOs should be acted upon literally when making strategic decisions. And why should they be? NCOs are good at their job and their job is to act upon higher orders, not to create those higher orders. Same is true for game design and interaction with customers. If we let you guys elect a grog spokesperson, and we let him run Battlefront, I bet either he'd quit in a week because he found himself in over his head or he'd ride the company all the way into the ground (or jump off somewhere inbetween). That's not to say the grog has no value... it's just that the value is not without its limitations.

BTS has always been remarkably good at listening to feedback, and has taken its pick and implemented suggestions over the years. It has been less remarkably good at the populist morale aspects of the matter, in my opinion because it has a misguided notion of the usefulness of officer-ese pangloss-ianism (if that's a word), in PR terms. Possibly it is psychologically difficult enough to put up with grog quirks, for some. I personally don't see it - a grog complaining about some point of minutae is clearly happy as a clam, as their womenfolk have figured out long ago.

I for one agree. But there is a line and sometimes an individual grog crosses it and turns himself into an overall liability. Attacking customers who actually like the game is a serious problem for us, no matter how fun they feel it is. Like Napoleon, we understand that a war can not be waged by a bunch of NCOs alone, no matter how much they say they can.

When they shut up and want to be elsewhere, is when it is time to worry.

True, it is time to worry. However, when all a game developer has are grogs then it's time to figure out a new line of employment. The lesson here, that I'm not sure you disagree with, is that catering to a minority is a bad idea. Whether it is the nastiest and grumbliest of the grogs or the sweetest of the fluffy happy campers... if that's all you got as a game developer you're sunk. Many wargame developers have forgotten this and felt reassured by having the straight talking grogs around them just as Napoleon and Hitler felt most reassured by the NCOs, and a corporate version of Waterloo and Berlin followed suit. We do not wish to make that mistake no matter how hard the grogs try to argue us into making it

The second point was about Tiller. His games are in fact a monument to the importance and longevity of a sound underlying game design. Which was all there in Terrible Swift Sword in the 1970s. His games suffer from simply horrible interface work, and his own recent design decisions have been uniformly poor (giantism, pushing scale way beyond the playable point, single guns in battery and regiment scale games to track every type precisely, etc). That any of them sold a single copy ever, is a tribute not to his progamming or computer anything, but to TSS and its original system.

If he had a decent interface design and some graphics, and avoided the predictable stuff ups with giantism and literalism and minutae, all undermining playability, I'd be playing those still.

Which is exactly why we had to move away from CMx1. Gotta change with the times or the times will change you. Getting lulled into a sense of false security by the minority gamer (i.e. the grog) at the expense of the majority (everybody else) is a recipe for disaster.

Steve

[Runyan99]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Again, you misread what happen. I remember the sales figures for each of their games and they were on a downward trend. This was not because they pissed off the grogs, it was because cost were going up and the number of people interested in playing 2D rehashes of a single game engine were going down (not even staying level). They were already a dead company walking before they "lost their focus", as you put it.

Yes, you are right.

Nevertheless, if you cannot deliver 1:1 that the community finds compelling, I predict you will experience the same kind of declining sales pattern going forward.

[Battlefront.com]

Elvis,

I think this intellectual masterbation is a good example of what bothers Steve about your comments.

That and his infamous disappearing act every time he is called to account for his comments. Which is why I've given him warning that he is dangerously close to fitting the definition of Troll (he already fits the definition of intellectual coward), and Trolls are not allowed here. I don't care if he's got 1 post or 30,000... he's not exempt from the rules.

So in case Dorosh, or anybody else misunderstands my previous comments, let me spell it out VERY clearly so we will have no misunderstandings in the future.

Dorosh has a history of being "agent provocateur". He makes some posts that contain statements which are (often times deliberately) inflammatory and inaccurate. No matter how politely he is challenged on these points he'll not engage in an honest exchange if he feels he'll come out on the losing end. He might nibble around the edges sometimes, but in general he runs away from challenges when he knows he's overstepped the line.

His usual tactic is to post a bunch of "I'm shocked you are attacking me" type posts (i.e. "hey, I'm a poor little innocent victim here!") followed by a bunch of silly comments that have no value at all. The latter are designed to give the illusion that he is still a part of the discussion without actually participating in it. Check out his posts since I responded to his litany of issues and see exactly what I mean.

I've seen many of Dorosh's messes, and had to deal with them in personal emails from REALLY pissed off people, enough times to know the pattern of his behavior. Until recently he usually didn't practice these things on me but on others. I therefore relied on my ability to get him to knock it off privately instead of just banning him, as he has definitely deserved on more than one occasion. But now that he has decided to turn his playbook on me I'm not left with any other option than to ban him since obviously 10 years of favorable treatment of him (including making him a tester, and keeping him a tester, against HUGE opposition) means nothing to him.

To sum up... Dorosh, if you pull your usual stunts with me again I will ban you without hesitation or regret. You have completely burned up all good will I have struggled to maintain towards you over the years. It takes a mighty effort to wear out my patience, so I guess you can take pride in that since that is apparently what you have wanted for some time now. Congratulations on your success.

Steve

[ April 01, 2008, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

... Sometimes an insignificant fold in the ground isn't a ridge, but due to the placement of the enemy becomes akin to one. Sometimes you want to minimize your profile on a ridgeline (ridgelines can be dangerous places), other times you want every man up there.

I agree that the area to look into with the current TacAI is how to better instruct the TacAI to get everyman into firing positions. It does a pretty good job of this now, but again... there are probably situations where improvement is possible.

Steve

Oh, I absolutely understand that this is a very tricky thing to program. As you note, there are all sorts of context-dependent evaluations the AI has to perform in order to accomplish this sort of thing realistically.

Mostly, I think the TacAI is doing a good job of handling stuff like squad pathfinding, formation, terrain usage, etc. I do hope you'll keep refining things in this area, though. It seems like ridgelines, building doors, and corners are still the most problematic areas (not surprising, really, given the challenges these features present).

Personally, I am not having problems with "Immersion," and I think CMx2's 1:1 representatiuon and terrain-based cover modeling is at least an order of magnitude more realistic than CMx1's modeling. To cite just one example, CMx1 doesn't provide any additional cover at all to infantry units in a "fighting crest" position (wrt small arms fire; HE is another matter). This is, of course very unrealistic for many situations. High ground does have certain tactical disadvantages, but it also has some very important advantages that CMx2 does a much better job of modeling. That's why we're all whining we we can't get our soldiers up onto the firing line properly.

Now, if you can just get on that OSX native version, I'll be happy as a pig in sh*t.

Cheers,

YD

[Battlefront.com]

Runyan99,

Yes, you are right.

Thanks for saying that. You're comments are examples of reasoned criticism that is both polite and direct. How anybody could portray me as hostile to such comments is still beyond me. People see what they want to see. Me? I see someone that cares deeply and has the social skills to communicate that without resorting to tantrum tactics. You are to be commended regardless of how we may differ on the amount of work that is needed to get a "compelling" environment for WW2 ready.

Nevertheless, if you cannot deliver 1:1 that the community finds compelling, I predict you will experience the same kind of declining sales pattern going forward.

As I said earlier, I agree. The difference is that some, like Dorosh, think we are about 80 years away from delivering that "compelling" experience, and others are already happy with what they have. We feel we're much closer to having things "compelling" than the major detractors of CM:SF believe to be the case.

[abneo3sierra]

I think there are always lessons to be learned, and always improvements that CAN be made.

I do not see it as totally unrealistic when units sometimes do not do exactly what you want them to do. To the contrary, one of the things I found unrealistic about most games in the past was the fact they did. That said it seems like an easy workaround to the problems mentioned above would still be either real time, or gaining the ability to control individual units, as it is modeled on a 1:1 ratio already.

Also, the hits on John Tiller's games are really classless. Many people, myself included, enjoy his games, which are mostly classics. That in no way takes away from my enjoyment of this game. Normally most people who I usually interact with are playing games to learn lessons, and you would choose your game depending on the lesson you want to learn.

Back to this game, it already is very good, and likely will get much better over time. I see no problem with people giving constructive criticism.

I do have a problem when the criticism implies that anyone disagreeing with that person is wrong.

[Runyan99]

Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

Also, the hits on John Tiller's games are really classless. Many people, myself included, enjoy his games, which are mostly classics. That in no way takes away from my enjoyment of this game.

You can enjoy them as much as you want, but to my way of thinking using the same graphical engine and shoddy artwork for the last 10 years seriously hampers the quality. The subject matter is interesting, but I won't buy the games because I cannot stand to look at them.

I appears Tiller does not want to take a risk investing in a new graphic artist in an attempt to boost sales.

[Guest]

Honestly, once you get into making dozens of games with the same engine and art you're kind of back into the board wargaming paradigm -- you design it and it's ready to sell -- without the overhead of boxing, printing, and packaging. It's probably fairly lucrative (by the standard of wargames, anyway) at low volumes.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Childress]

It's definitely getting better. Humble prediction: CMSF will hit the sweet spot, pleasing 90% of us, around update #12. In other words, the same number of patches CMBO required.

[Lurker765]

A minor niggle...CMBO did not have 12 updates.

It had eight total patches starting on 06/14/2000 and ending on 02/06/2001.

See:

http://www.geocities.com/desertfox1891/CombatMission/Combatmissionpatches.html

On this thread's topic, my immersion in the game disappeared due to all the bugs for the first four months. I then decided to just wait it out for a stable version that did not frustrate me and that also allows me to play against another human via PBEM without crashing. I am hoping that v1.08 fixes the remaining multiplayer bugs and I can try it again and see if I have fun playing it.

My expectations for this game were just too high. Once I heard it was the new Combat Mission brand I pre-ordered thinking I would be able to set fortifications, use arty smoke, have targetting lines, etc. It was tough to get immersed in the game when WEGO replays show tanks floating in craters that don't get created until the end of the turn.

The bugs just sucked all the joy from the game for me and now I am just waiting to see what happens to the game.

[LongLeftFlank]

Just read the full 7 pages of this thread for the first time.

Steve, insofar as I can tell Dorosh has said nothing -- here or anywhere else -- that would warrant banning him. Doing so would deprive this forum -- and the game -- of one of its pillars, a real strategic thinker and devoted "industry expert".

I give BFC full kudos for creating and working tirelessly and bravely to build on the only video game I have the slightest interest in spending my scarce leisure time playing. However, I agree with many of Dorosh's (and C3ks, and JasonC's) observations regarding the game's remaining shortcomings (which I feel are quite fixable -- and I believe they think so too).

Not that my opinion matters more than anybody else's, but I have the good fortune to work with brilliant and highly opinionated people all day as a senior quant in the executive suite of a Fortune 50 company. We get the A-teams from Goldman, McKinsey, Bain, et al. (and no they're not always right, nor am I either, but they set the bar pretty high at laying out concise, reasoned and data-driven arguments).

And I'll tell you that Dorosh, together with some others like JasonC, John D Salt and BigDuke, give nothing to the above folks in the way of raw reasoning power, insight or eloquence of expression.

Oh, and you're on that list too, by the way.

In sum (cue Delta boys humming the Battle Hymn), you are not obliged to take Dorosh's advice, or anyone else's. But he is NOT poisoning the well or subverting the morals of the youth of Athens or any other such thing. And I honestly doubt he's out there doing it on other boards either.

As others have said, take a step back, breathe, wave your arms about a bit, then keep up the good work.

Here endeth my catechism...

[Peter Cairns]

Well I've really only had one clash with Mr Dorosh when I made some what I thought were honest opinions on ASL, which I just never took too because for me for all the quality of the maps and counters and other visuals I thought it was a rather clumsy design.

For that I got both barrels which included being called arrogant for daring to question a game with such huge support.

So I just ignored it.....

Peter.

[Pak_43]

Seeing as I now actually earn a living running a customer service team for a games company I think it's fair to say that you get far far more out of Battlefront in terms of information and debate than we ever give our players (but then a lot of our players put even the whiniest grog to shame trust me, I'll gladly swap horror stories with Steve anytime! )

We reckon where I work that around 20% of the people who buy our games actually even look on the forums, never mind post...If Battlefronts profile is similar then that's how heavily uber grogs are outnumbered when it comes to their weight as customers...

However what intrigued me slightly was the oft quoted line that "Battlefront were fed up of doing WW2"

Doing some background reading to get my head round the realities of how a game project is managed to retail I picked up a copy of "Secrets of the Game Business, 2nd edition"

And lo, on page 63 under "A brief history of using games for training" it says, and I quote..

"Battlefront's CMAK (my abbreviation) were licensed by the Australian Navy to train their soldiers in historical tactics [Proctor02] says that the results of the study performed with CMBO (my abb. again) resulted in the US Military Academy contracting a modern version of the game"

[Proctor02] is noted as:

Proctor, M. D. Williams, Wilburn C Jr. "Interoperable Training through a Simulation Game", SISO Conference 2002..

However, I wondered if you were in a position, Steve, to confirm if the above statement is factually correct and if the game quoted above is CMSF?

Now as Steve often (correctly) points out, it's their company and they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and I have absolutely no beef with their decision to produce a modern game. The patched version of it plays great IMO and I can't think of a single thing that irks me when I play with 1.07...

It is an excellent (but not flawless, MP still sucks imo) simulation of low oganisation level modern combat as I understand it (for instance I am pretty confident I could take the Al Mutlaa Police Post combat report in "Death Ground, Todays American Infantry in Battle" and turn it into a scenario with which you could replicate the US tactics pretty closely and come out with a similar result) and I can understand many of the design decisions that were taken to get to where the game is where it is now (with the exception of the 1.0 UI, which I did not like at all )

It has drawn admiring remarks from lots of very very experienced gaming industry professionals I work with about the execution of the game with the size of team you have, and these guys are normally grudging in the extreme with their praise...

I gather from my reading and (limited) experience that the vast majority of games don't make any money at all and it's the hits that pay for the rest, if CMSF has made *any* money at all then that pretty much qualifies as a hit in this industry imo...

Roll on more of Battlefront producing / publishing more stuff I want to play (such as HW:LG!)

[Combatintman]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Herr Kruger:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by thewood:

Unless I missed a post somewhere, I haven't seen Dorosh post anything I would call "bannable". I have seen some of BFC's testers post more confrontational stuff than Dorosh, and I don't even think that was bannable.

Me either, though I don't come into the CMSF forum much. He makes excellent points I happen to agree with a lot of the time. </font>

[John Kettler]

Steve (and fellow gamers),

Roger on the code situation. I have a new idea, but it may or may not help. In BiA, there was a command to the squad to "Go here" which was executed by basically placing an X on the ground.

Most of the time it worked well, with the men on line and ready to fight effectively from behind good cover. Sometimes, though, it didn't work well and led to some ugly situations, the worst of which was when it put my guys on the enemy's side of a stone wall, just as a StuG rolled in! Clearly, that won't work! Here's what I think might.

Give the players the ability to deploy on line, then define its limits by placing a line segment or maybe a couple where said line is supposed to go. Players can now decide for themselves where that ridgeline is, taking the stress off your AI.

Face or Cover Arc should orient the men, and you could even use fuzzy logic to put some noise in how well the troops actually hit their assigned spots, based on all manner of variables. The basic movement scheme seems to be already handled, but I see this as being an integrated command designed to fit this situation:

"Sergeant, put A Squad on that ridgeline there and put fire on the houses across the street. Here."

That is a mundane military task, and it shouldn't be an immersion killer for the players or a major headache requiring you to have to specially code the game to read the terrain.

If you let the players figure out where the key ground is and simply give them the tools to ID it to their men when giving orders, then the coding would seem to be fairly simple and straightforward, while at the same time depriving the currently justly vexed of a leg to stand on. Why? If they misread the ground, it's now their fault, not the game's! Call it "Advance to terrain feature & form combat line."

I think this could be a quick fix, but I'm not Charles, nor do I have access to your schedules and budgets there.

Regards,

John Kettler

[76mm]

Originally posted by Combatintman:

I'm fed up to the back gonads of the whingeing that is going on here...Jesus - get over it will you - if you don't like the game fair enough - if you want to add constructive suggestions and discuss them with a bloke who could actually make a difference then I beg you to stay.

Frankly, I'm tired of the whining about the "whining". Aren't we all entitled to express our opinions about the game? The day this turns from a discussion forum to a fanboi club is the day I stop visiting.

[Combatintman]

Originally posted by 76mm:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Combatintman:

I'm fed up to the back gonads of the whingeing that is going on here...Jesus - get over it will you - if you don't like the game fair enough - if you want to add constructive suggestions and discuss them with a bloke who could actually make a difference then I beg you to stay.

Frankly, I'm tired of the whining about the "whining". Aren't we all entitled to express our opinions about the game? The day this turns from a discussion forum to a fanboi club is the day I stop visiting. </font>

[JasonC]

LongLeftFlank - seconded. And appreciated, BTW... The quality of regular CM posters has been very high in general. I've seen the like once before on usenet in a game following ("Stars"), and in a few technical software fora - but it remains exceptional.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Combatintman:

Steve has invited Dorosh to debate his opinions

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=004065;p=1#000014

Read sentence one.

Unlike Dorosh, who is convinced that there is only one way to look at the world (i.e. his),

Not much of an invitation.

Me: It would by hypocritical if anyone was making that argument. Um. They're not.

Steve: Yes, you are.

As much fun as it would be for you, Combatintman, to see Steve and I swinging our purses at each other, I recommend you get your jollies someplace else. You can accuse me of chucking grenades - by leaving - whatever sense that makes - but your own comments seem more provocative than mine at this point.

It really doesn't matter; Steve and I have been back and forth on the same topic in a few threads at any event and I think it has all been said. You're new here so I don't blame you for not knowing that. I do blame you for judging people without knowing the whole story. Settle back and enjoy a few more threads and learn the lay of the land. Maybe read the Peng Thread and challenge a couple of the lads to a friendly game or two. Introduce yourself with a friendly hello, they like meeting strangers. (Steve is right about one thing; gamers can be vicious bastards when the mood strikes. )

[Combatintman]

Dorosh

Yes I admit I'm a new bloke around here - guilty m'lud - have I judged without knowing the whole story ... guilty m'lud. Does that mean my judgement is bad though? Maybe - and if it is ... I'm over it.

As to me enjoying this - I'm not to be honest and I think my statement about being sick to the back gonads of it was about as clear as it could be.

As to the read sentence one stuff ... done that. Nice selective quoting. Nice one indeed.

I go back to my pub analogy - there is absolutely no point whatsoever in needling the landlord/landlady/barmaid/doorman/bouncer unnecessarily - the guy has asked you to debate more than once and you haven't. Now if that was a boozer - you'd be barred - unless this was a game and you got a lucky roll on the D10 or something.

So back to the immersion thing - I'm immersed, I do lose it when vehicles merge but with 1.07 I've only ever seen that once. Otherwise what else is killing me immersion-wise - not much to be blunt in terms of the visual experience.

I do struggle with the abstraction of suicide bombers et al and I would like to see civilians actually modelled as background noise for the terrorist elements to blend into in certain environments. That for me is the thing that probably spoils it most for me.

How do I get around it. First tactic is to mention it on the odd post in the forums and leave it at that. Second tactic is to avoid scenarios where they feature prominently. What I don't do is launch a Jihad against the game company.

[Battlefront.com]

Adam1,

As for CMx2, the people who are complaining about the design aren't even playing it at this point. It's kinda silly, really, I think more motivated by a desire to vent than an actual chance of making BFC get a new philosophy.

Yeah, I get that feeling too. Actually, one of the most vocal critics hasn't (as far as I know) even played the demo, not to mention own the game itself.

CMx2 is steadily getting better all the time, a lot of abstraction is back. I've been objectively critiquing the hell out of it since release and I think it's more realistic at this point than the CMx1 engine. CMx1 fundamentals are still there in fact.

Note to newbies... Adam1 practically blew a gasket (or three ) about the state of the game early on, so this statement from him means quite a bit from our perspective. He managed to get over his initial issues with the game, no doubt in large part to us fixing them (i.e. I doubt he'd still be here if we didn't fix them), and is seeing the game from a different perspective than before. Adam1 knows that throughout the adjustment period I hoped he would stick it out. I'm glad he did.

Childress ,

It's definitely getting better. Humble prediction: CMSF will hit the sweet spot, pleasing 90% of us, around update #12. In other words, the same number of patches CMBO required.

Thanks.

Lurker765,

On this thread's topic, my immersion in the game disappeared due to all the bugs for the first four months... The bugs just sucked all the joy from the game for me and now I am just waiting to see what happens to the game.

I can't fault you, or anybody else, for feeling this way. It was a rougher start to the new engine than anybody would have liked, but it's the right direction for us and we feel we've basically got the fundamentals we need to move ahead.

LongLeftFlank,

Just read the full 7 pages of this thread for the first time.

Slow day at the office, huh?

Steve, insofar as I can tell Dorosh has said nothing -- here or anywhere else -- that would warrant banning him. Doing so would deprive this forum -- and the game -- of one of its pillars, a real strategic thinker and devoted "industry expert".

That's one way to view him. Many view him in a less flattering light. But obviously I don't feel he has no value at all or I would have bounced him out of here for one or another of his scraps that he's been involved in over the years.

In sum (cue Delta boys humming the Battle Hymn), you are not obliged to take Dorosh's advice, or anyone else's. But he is NOT poisoning the well or subverting the morals of the youth of Athens or any other such thing. And I honestly doubt he's out there doing it on other boards either.

I don't know if he buggers Greek boys or not (I presume not), but I do know what he's doing here. There is a lot of history to this that you are probably unaware of. And I am not alone in knowing this history or being extremely disappointed with his behavior. Dorosh's standing has gone down quite a bit with a lot of the old guard of this Forum, some of which have made their feelings known via email in the past 2 days (I've received about a dozen emails pleading with me to just ban him and be done with him). So I don't expect you to understand the complexity of what is going on here, just please believe me that you may have missed something.

Pak_43

Seeing as I now actually earn a living running a customer service team for a games company I think it's fair to say that you get far far more out of Battlefront in terms of information and debate than we ever give our players (but then a lot of our players put even the whiniest grog to shame trust me, I'll gladly swap horror stories with Steve anytime! )

Er... OK, but if you do that you're going to have to buy the beer. Lots of it and of the Belgian triple variety. I don't think I could handle it otherwise

We reckon where I work that around 20% of the people who buy our games actually even look on the forums, never mind post...If Battlefronts profile is similar then that's how heavily uber grogs are outnumbered when it comes to their weight as customers...

It's tough to estimate, and it varies by game, but I'd say 20% is not off the mark. Of that maybe only 2% or so posting at any given time with a decent chunk of them being "regulars" for a longer period and a much smaller number sticking around pretty much all the time.

And lo, on page 63 under "A brief history of using games for training" it says, and I quote..

"Battlefront's CMAK (my abbreviation) were licensed by the Australian Navy to train their soldiers in historical tactics [Proctor02] says that the results of the study performed with CMBO (my abb. again) resulted in the US Military Academy contracting a modern version of the game"

Heh... well, mostly right. We had a contract with the Australian Army and we did indeed have a really dandy study done with CMBO by an Army Major (now LTC). We also had a draft contract with TRADOC to adopt the CMBO engine to modern warfare, but OIF sucked up the funding. Lots of unofficial use of the game by a lot of different folks in uniform for a variety of different reasons over the years, but for CMx1 that's all that there is of note.

For CM:SF there hasn't been anything Earth shattering, but it has recently entered some classrooms on an official basis and is being evaluated by others for various applications. That's about all I can say about that. Well, besides learning that I should never suggest to someone in uniform that they schedule a call time. I've got to get up at 0730 tomorrow (damn, today!) to discuss another classroom possibility. Except for loggers and farmers I don't see the reason why any Human should be up at that hour

Having said all of this, I want to make sure that everybody understands that we did not build CM:SF with the idea that we were going to land some sweet military contract with the US Army. We've been around that block enough times to know that anybody foolish enough to count on something like that will likely go out of business waiting for it to happen. As one of my military contacts put it, getting a big contract with the military is like getting struck by lighting. It happens very infrequently and is about a shocking when it does

Now, obviously we feel that we have a good product for certain training niches, but that's incidental. This game was created solely for the commercial sector and military applications have never been a part of the decisions we've made. I say this because some of our critics think we made this on spec for a military contract and that's just not the case.

It is an excellent (but not flawless, MP still sucks imo) simulation of low oganisation level modern combat as I understand it (for instance I am pretty confident I could take the Al Mutlaa Police Post combat report in "Death Ground, Todays American Infantry in Battle" and turn it into a scenario with which you could replicate the US tactics pretty closely and come out with a similar result) and I can understand many of the design decisions that were taken to get to where the game is where it is now (with the exception of the 1.0 UI, which I did not like at all )

It has drawn admiring remarks from lots of very very experienced gaming industry professionals I work with about the execution of the game with the size of team you have, and these guys are normally grudging in the extreme with their praise...

Thanks for that. Not for me, rather for others to see (even though they will likely ignore it and label you a "fan bois" ).

I gather from my reading and (limited) experience that the vast majority of games don't make any money at all and it's the hits that pay for the rest, if CMSF has made *any* money at all then that pretty much qualifies as a hit in this industry imo...

You gather right. The games industry is so closely related to the movie industry (largely on purpose) that the hit:failure ratio is similar as well. From my dusty days at film school (before I figured history was a better fit) I remember that something like out of 100 films made a large number were never released and of those released only a half dozen would make money, and of those only 2 or 3 would really bring home the bacon. The top earning games would then have to pay off the ones that didn't work out.

One year a total of 47 RTS games were released (IIRC 1995), of which I think only 2 or 3 were considered successes. Only a few that didn't make the cut were "indy" releases, the others were fairly big budget games. The company I worked for at the time (Impressions) had two still births that year for the RTS genre, so they weren't even included in that list of 47. But the writeoff was more than we've probably spent on all 4 CM releases combined.

Steve

[Melnibone]

Originally posted by LongLeftFlank:

And I'll tell you that Dorosh, together with some others like JasonC, ......... give nothing to the above folks in the way of raw reasoning power, insight or eloquence of expression.

Maybe these clever boys could cut out the periodic abuse and arrogance to others then. It must be within their super powers to do this.

[Battlefront.com]

Combatintman,

Jesus - get over it will you - if you don't like the game fair enough - if you want to add constructive suggestions and discuss them with a bloke who could actually make a difference then I beg you to stay.

I've never understood why some people think that trying to piss me off, on purpose, will get them what they want. I dunno... maybe when they were kids and they threw a tantrum their mom caved and gave them what they wanted.

As always, I strive to treat posters here in the same manner in which they treat me. Not pretty all the time, but I think it is preferable than banning the person for the infraction. But I do have my limits, though they are so very rarely reached and even more rarely exceeded. Not a bad track record for 10 years and probably a half million posts from 20k+ posters.

I have few rules in life however one of them is - 'never upset the barmaid' Think about it.

If you saw our local one you'd probably double your caution. I think she could kick most people's asses without the aid of a blunt object (though I think should could put one in an uncomfortable spot if provoked enough!).

John Kettler,

Roger on the code situation. I have a new idea, but it may or may not help. In BiA, there was a command to the squad to "Go here" which was executed by basically placing an X on the ground.

Most of the time it worked well, with the men on line and ready to fight effectively from behind good cover. Sometimes, though, it didn't work well and led to some ugly situations, the worst of which was when it put my guys on the enemy's side of a stone wall, just as a StuG rolled in! Clearly, that won't work! Here's what I think might.

Yes, a standard problem. CMx1 would have had this problem much more if it weren't for the major abstractions. Even still, there were growing pains for the TacAI in the use of relative cover (like a wall).

Give the players the ability to deploy on line, then define its limits by placing a line segment or maybe a couple where said line is supposed to go. Players can now decide for themselves where that ridgeline is, taking the stress off your AI.

Face or Cover Arc should orient the men, and you could even use fuzzy logic to put some noise in how well the troops actually hit their assigned spots, based on all manner of variables.

Something like this is a "concept of last resort" which I, at least, have in mind if the TacAI down the road still has specific problems with situations that could be eased by more player micromanagement. However, the hope is that the TacAI can be improved a bit more so that instead of it getting things mostly right most of the time that it's almost always right almost all of the time. That's definitely the preferable solution and therefore that's the one that Charles will remain focused on delivering.

76mm

Frankly, I'm tired of the whining about the "whining". Aren't we all entitled to express our opinions about the game? The day this turns from a discussion forum to a fanboi club is the day I stop visiting.

You might be surprised to hear that I agree. The problem is when someone really doesn't want to participate in a positive way. That's what Combatintman meant (as his follow up post confirms). For while there was a bounty put on the head of anybody who liked the game, which I allowed to go on for a while because I felt it necessary to let people get it out of their systems. However, it really is pointless to keep harping about the fundamentals of CMx2 since we obviously aren't going to depart from them. Might as well argue with ConAgra or ADM about stopping their genetic modifications of crops until they know what the F they are doing

JasonC,

LongLeftFlank - seconded. And appreciated, BTW... The quality of regular CM posters has been very high in general. I've seen the like once before on usenet in a game following ("Stars"), and in a few technical software fora - but it remains exceptional.

I also agree, otherwise we'd have shut down this place years ago. It's a good place to interact, despite the rough patches we hit.

Dorosh,

It really doesn't matter; Steve and I have been back and forth on the same topic in a few threads at any event and I think it has all been said.

And yet you keep saying it. Why... I have no idea, which is the reason I tried to debate you this latest go around. You can make up whatever excuse for that you wish, but of all the things you are or might be... you're not stupid. Your actions here have been carefully calculated. Some don't, can't, or won't see that, but I see it clear as day. I'm also not alone seeing it, not by a long shot. So my warning to you remains unmodified as per my previous post. Chuck another bomb into a thread like this one, then run away (after your signature "I'm so innocent" and "hey, I'm just a fun loving guy" follow ups) again and your massive post count meter will be frozen for good. I'll take some crap for it, but I'm sure it won't be any worse than when I finally had to give Fionn the boot (4 years ago this month I believe). As I said, the choice about staying here is yours. I'll abide by your decision.

Steve

[ April 01, 2008, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[gibsonm]

Keep it up, only 6 more posts to overtake the latest “Peng” instalment!

You guys are also working at a higher rate (they started on 19/03 and you guys on 29/03)! :eek:

For what its worth, my part of the ADF was very happy with the CMAK Crete version and may indeed be interested in CM:SF when it matures a bit more and some requirements are addressed (which have been raised with Steve directly).

Don’t know where someone got the idea that the RAN used it though.